...; transferred from the Ministerie van Marine (Department of the Navy), The Hague, to the museum, 1883

Object number: NG-MC-541

Model of a starboard paddle box against a section of the ship’s side.

The floats of the cycloidal paddle wheel are divided into narrow slips arranged slightly behind one another in cycloidal curves, in such a way that they all enter the water at the same place in immediate succession, avoiding the shock produced by a common board. The shaft of the wheel does not continue to the outer side of the box to rest on the paddle beam and therefore has less tendency to bend, which prevents friction. The shaft is supported against the hull by a reinforced pillow block (model NG-MC-551) and the spokes are mounted on a thick circular plate on the shaft. The most important feature of the model, however, is the paddle boat: a double-bottomed, diagonally built lifeboat turned upside down covering the paddle box. A set of davits hinges inside the paddle box swing out when the lifeboat is tilted over, holding it beside the paddle box above the water. The lifeboat can then be lowered with tackles.

This lifeboat installation was invented by J. Groll in 1845 for the 6-gun paddle steamer Cycloop, length 47 metres, built by August Elize Tromp (1801-1871) in Flushing between 1840 and 1843 and decommissioned in 1873. Groll’s invention was an improvement of the British method invented by Captain George Smith, which was considered unsafe in the Netherlands. In 1855 it was incidentally used when Cycloop ran aground near Zandvoort.

Scale (derived) 1:20.

Tijdschrift toegewijd aan het zeewezen 1841, no. 12, pp. 206-07; C. Roest, Het marine stoomwerktuig beschreven in de vorm van een woordenboek, s.l. 1842, pp. 39, 44; J. Groll, ‘De toestel tot kentering der raderkast-booten’, Tijdschrift toegewijd aan het zeewezen 5 (1845), 2nd series, pp. 298-305 and pl.; H. Huijgens, Handleiding tot de kennis van het stoomwerktuig, Amsterdam 1847, p. 125, para. 156; H. Kemper, Handleiding tot de kennis van het stoomwezen bij de Marine, s.l. 1853, p. 120; J.M. Obreen, Catalogus der verzameling modellen van het Departement van Marine, The Hague 1858, no. 541; C. Scheffer, ‘Het afbrengen van ZM stoomschip “Cycloop”, van het strand nabij Zandvoort’, Verhandelingen en berigten betrekkelijk het zeewezen (1858), no. 2, pp. 229-45; J. Bourne, A Treatise on the Steam-Engine in its Various Applications to Mines, Mills, Steam Navigation, Railways, and Agriculture, London 1861 (5th ed.), p. 383; J. Knox Laughton, ‘Smith, George (1797?-1850)’, in Smith, Elder & Co. (eds.), Dictionary of National Biography, 63 vols., Oxford 1885-1900, vol. 53, 1898; J.M. Dirkzwager, ‘De Nederlandse Marine als pionier in de technische ontwikkeling. De radervoortstuwing in het tweede kwart van de 19de eeuw’, Tijdschrift voor Zeegeschiedenis 10 (1991), no. 1, pp. 41-58, pp. 52-54, figs. 11-13; J.M. Dirkzwager, ‘Problemen en oplossingen bij de ontwikkeling van de stoomvaart in Nederland’, Erfgoed van Industrie en Techniek 3 (1992), pp. 74-90, p. 81; D.K. Brown, Paddle Warships: The Earliest Steam Powered Fighting Ships 1815-1850, London 1993; H. Stevens (ed.), The Art of Technology: The Navy Model Collection in the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam/Wormer 1995, pp. 52-53; A.J. Hoving, ‘Early Dutch Paddlewheelers’, Model Shipwright 79 (1992), pp. 59-63; A.J. Hoving, Message in a Model: Stories from the Navy Model Room of the Rijksmuseum, Florence, OR 2013, pp. 164-67

J. van der Vliet, 2016, 'anonymous, Model of a Paddle Box and Wheel, Flushing, 1845', in J. van der Vliet and A. Lemmers (eds.), Navy Models in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200315823